Inadvertantly Boyish

So I’ve been sporting a Van Dykish bit of facial hair for the last year and a half or so because that’s what IT professionals do in Missouri. Also, that’s what a lot of other people do in the Ozarks. However.

But trimming last week, I broke the guide on my little $10 grooming tool. It was a little trimmer with a plastic guide that snapped on and had a couple of settings for beard lengths. One of the little pegs that gripped the notches in the side of the trimmer snapped off as I was putting it back on after cleaning it, so it became useless except for cutting facial hair close enough to shave off. I’d just put new batteries in it, too.

So I picked up a $14 unit at the department store. This one was a little snazzier, with a dial that controlled a clipper that does not come off. Also, it’s hard to see exactly where the guide is in relation to the clippers as they lie askew the device and the guide is, as I mentioned, affixed to the device.

I set the thing to its second lowest setting–I’d used the lowest setting on my previous trimmer, and I took a pass, and….

Apparently, 2 is the hipster setting. It mowed the facial hair to the level of stubble.

I can only imagine what the lowest setting is. 600 grit sandpaper, perhaps.

Given that the trimmer had mostly eradicated my beard, I took the razor and finished it off.

And suddenly, I’m startling myself every time I look in the mirror.

I don’t know if I’ll go bare-faced for long, or if I’ll miss the facial hair and slowly grow it back and see if the new facial hair trimmer has any setting that allows me to have facial hair.

But I do know one thing: I look younger, strangely. Probably because I didn’t grow facial hair until my late 30s and think I look like the pictures from my youth. But for a little while, my chin will be cold.